Friday, August 16, 2019

Letters to the editor with pictures since 2002. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.

[Feds May Remove Key Species From Endangered List] Federal wildlife officials want to remove the iconic Key deer from the endangered species list, but the proposal doesn’t sit well with local conservation groups, who argue that the species has faced some of its most significant threats in recent years and will continue to face future threats from sea level rise. As part of an upcoming “Service Work Plan,” staff members working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended taking the off the federal Endangered Species List, said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Ken Warren. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Marathon Government Center, where the recommendation will be discussed. The idea is only a recommendation by staff at this time and has not reached the level of a formal “proposal,” Warren said, adding that if the recommendation does eventually become a proposal, it would be listed in the Federal Register, which would allow the public to comment on it for at least 60 days. The proposal process takes at least a year to complete, he said. The idea of removing the deer from the endangered species list was referred labeled “bizarre” by representatives of the local Save Our Key Deer group and the national Center for Biological Diversity.
The species is only found on a few islands in the Lower Keys and has faced signiﬁcant threats in recent years, such as a fatal outbreak of New World screwworm in 2016 that killed 135 of the estimated less than 1,000 Key deer, then Hurricane Irma in 2017 claimed the lives of at least 21 deer, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Warren acknowledged that the screwworm outbreak impacted the herd’s population, but the service does not know exactly how much an effect it had on the species, he said.
The service plans to conduct another population survey in coming months, Warren said.
Vehicle strikes and sea level rise impacting the deer’s habitat and freshwater drinking supply also threaten the population.
“The Key deer were hit hard by the screwworm, hammered by hurricanes and keep getting hit by cars,” said Jaclyn Lopez, an attorney and Florida director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Their habitat is a set of tiny little islands that aren’t getting any bigger. They are ripe for continued management.”
Vehicle strikes and development are not the only human threat to the species. In 2017, two Miami men captured, hog-tied and kidnapped three Key deer and were later sentenced to six months in Monroe County jail and three years of probation. The two men were stopped for a routine trafﬁc stop on July 2, 2017 at Mile Marker 30 on U.S. 1 by a Monroe County Sheriff’s deputy, who immediately contacted Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission ofﬁcers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents when he saw two deer in the backseat, reports say. A search shortly thereafter turned up the buck in the trunk.
The two does were released, but the buck was injured and had to be euthanized.
Save Our Key Deer president Valerie Preziosi is concerned that criminal penalties for such behavior could be reduced if the species is taken off the Endangered Species List. Preziosi said she is shocked the service would even consider delisting the species. Her group is deeply concerned. “We will ﬁght this (the delisting) with all of our might,” Preziosi said. ~ By Timothy O’Hara Key West Citizen August 16, 2019 tohara@keysnews.com

[Crooks] Roman Gastesi, is requesting a cash payment of nearly a quarter of a million dollars for his unused vacation and sick time. Thinks of how many discounted iPhones and iPads he can buy with that much money! (Ed: that’s a reference to his past indiscretion of buying stolen county property, I think.)

I saw the most impressive billboard I’ve ever seen in Miami for Mount Sinai Hospital: We can treat any emergency. That sure is one hell of a statement. They don’t fly anyone anywhere for anything.

[America The Dangerous] Violent crimes include murder, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. There are some surprisingly dangerous cities in the US. If you are going to tour Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, you might want to be armed since in that city your odds of being a victim of violent crime are 1 in 50. The police were obviously unable to protect a lot of people. And that statistic was based on reported crimes so far this year. How many went unreported. Link

[Up In Smoke] Mike Tyson says he smokes around $40K worth of weed a month at his ranch. Video1 Video2

[Weed] Booze is bad enough, but weed puts you in orbit and that is not logical, especially at 70 mph!

[Petition to Save Our Deer]Please sign and share this petition. I saw no notice on the Federal Register that this was being planned (thus no 30-day public comment period), making it a last minute (and illegal?) decision. These deer have already lost most of their habitat and to allow developers to take more of it will sign a death notice for the deer. Petition

[After Thrill] Thinking and getting excited about something, like a vacation or trip, is usually more fun that the event itself. Often when I get safe and sound back at home, I relive the event with greater pleasure. When I’m away, especially in a foreign country, I’m always on guard and don’t let my thoughts get carried away like I do at home. That’s the same with getting high in foreign countries. I can’t get as high over there as I can at home because my little voice keeps telling me to beware and watch my back. I’m never totally at ease with foreigners and dope, or anything for that matter.

[Walmart vs Amazon] Move over Amazon, Walmart is getting their online thing together. I ordered a trailer tire and rim and some cereal bowls and the tire and rim came in 1 day, the bowls 2! Free shipping on orders of $100! No member fee!

[Movies] Zombie movies seem to have gone the way of vampire movies. There just so many stories and plots to use for either genre. We’ve seen zombies that hobble, run, think, talk, have feelings, and work. I guess the only story they haven’t tried is a zombie entertainer. I can’t imagine a zombie snapping its fingers and keeping a beat.

[Nitpicking the nipicking comment] There is no nitpicking, when you spread a lie by saying people are using automatic weapons, and military grade weapons, that’s a lie. That feeds into the false narrative that is told day in and out by CNN, MSNBC, and every other media outlet owned by the liberal media. Nomenclature, nice word, “we” used that word in the military service. You all know what “we” are talking about. Who are we? Liberal gun grabbers? The issue is not guns, it’s sick people. No smoke and mirrors here.

[Friday Joke] My three-year-old daughter stuck out her hand and said, “Look at the fly I killed, Mommy.” Since she was eating a juicy pickle at the time, I thrust her contaminated hands under the faucet and washed them with antibacterial soap.

After sitting her down to finish her pickle, I asked, with a touch of awe, “How did you kill that fly all by yourself?”
Between bites, she said, “I hit it with my pickle.”

[How To Wash ADead Monk] The bodies of dead monks and hermits are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual: “If any one of the monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated shall wipe the body with warm water, making ﬁrst the sign of the cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on the breast, on the hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough.” ~ Dostoevsky

[Web Warning] “Bad Guys of the world beware the next time you think about jumping on an old guy, because it’s a fair bet he’s too old to fight and probably too fat to run, but can put a bullet in your eye at 50ft with his weak hand.”

[Nice Post] Deer Ed, Thank you for a web site that allows people to read others thoughts, and what’s going on in the middle and lower keys. I look forward to it twice a week. But I do miss the days when it was published daily.

[Movies–Sore Nuts] What was the first time you saw someone kick a guy in the nuts during a movie fight? Most of the fights have a nut kick or squeeze (ouch). In the movies I grew up with, that helped form my opinions of right and wrong, I never saw Roy, Hoppy or the Duke kick anyone in the nuts. Hell, it used to be “fighting dirty” just to hit a guy wearing glasses.

[TheAdditive Doctor] Probably most commercially prepared condiments and foods, including bread, contain an emulsifier for smooth texture that forces oil and water to mix. Polysorbate 80 seems to be in everything. In your gut, emulsifiers act like a detergent, disrupting digestive bacteria and promoting inflammation. The publication “Nature” published a study of emulsifiers on mice which says, “In mice, relatively low concentrations of two commonly used emulsifiers, namely carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80, induced low-grade inflammation and obesity/metabolic syndrome in wild-type hosts and promoted robust colitis in mice predisposed to this disorder.”
In other words, it made them fat and sickly, just like most of us.

I woke up hungover to the sound of my neighbor mowing the lawn. I ﬁgured he’ll just have to mow around me, I’m not moving.

[Taking Away Guns] The source of the false rumor that a group of the populous is trying to take away your guns has been traced to the NRA. The NRA says liberals want to take away our guns. No reasonable person wants to take away our guns. We want hunting guns and hand guns to remain.

[The Amazon Effect] Why are lots of large chain stores closing so many outlets? Is something happening we sheep don’t know about? Is the government ready to call in the troops and end all the invasions, gun problems, rip off merchants and other things that are tearing down America? What is going on?

[Sugar Highs Are Great] I had a few chocolate doughnuts yesterday and felt like a kid again. I’m 89! Remember when we lived on sugar and played all day and never wanted to go to sleep? I think sugar is what people need today, not diet sweetener crap

[Ban Everything] All the crazies coming out of their closets and protesting everything, suing everybody, and wanting everything banned, maybe we should just ban them and get back to work.